Ashes to Ashes
by NoSecretsHere
Summary: "As you attempt to form a coherent sentence Miss Granger, I will tell you what little assumptions I have made of our situation. We are not like the ghosts you are used to roaming Hogwarts. We can not be seen or heard by any of the living or those ghosts that you are so used to. The reasoning behind this has yet to make itself known," Snape took a step back from her.


**Author's Note:**

To those of you reading my multi-chapter story, "Elapse", I apologize. I have been reworking the entire framework of my story and when it returns, I hope, it will be much better than before.

To tide you over, and for the pleasure of those that come across it, I present to you this Two-Shot.

I hope that you enjoy. Be sure to favorite the story, review, and check out the multiple other fanfictions on my profile.

 **Disclaimer** :

If you recognize it, I do not own it.

 **Day 1**

"Mrs. Weasley! Mrs. Weasley!" Hermione shouted for the fifth time, trying to get the older woman's attention.

Like the other three individuals that had passed her in the rubble-filled corridor, Molly Weasley ignored her. This had been going on since Hermione had crawled out from beneath the fallen wall in the very hall that she stood in. Knowing that there had been others in the corridor with her before the accident, all attempting to clean up the mess that the battle had left behind, she had not wanted to leave her place. Her wand was lost somewhere beneath the piles of stone, and her attempts to lift any with her own hands had proven futile. Those buried would be dead soon, if they weren't already.

It wasn't as if she were alone, four people had walked by her and the rubble. All had given pitying look to the state of the hall, some, like Mrs. Weasley, even sniffled. Yet, none acknowledged her or made a move to help. What was wrong with the world?

"She does not hear you, Miss Granger, none of them can," a drawling voice shocked her out of her thoughts.

Hermione felt a shiver of fear run down her spine. She knew that voice. She had heard it nearly every day for the past seven years of her life. Memories of snarls, sneers, and insults curled around her was a voice she had heard for the last time only a few hours ago, as the person had died in front of her.

Sucking in a breath, she shook her head. She was imagining things. The trauma of war and a near death experience had sent her into a standard retreat to the comfort of what she knew, what made her feel safe. It was common amongst those who survived life-threatening circumstances to revert back to their childhood in many ways. Her revival of her dead Potions Professor was a textbook example.

"Miss Granger, would you please stop referencing medical texts and turn around. I have no patience for your dawdling," the voice of Severus Snape returned.

Hermione turned around, preparing herself to see nothing but an empty corridor. A strangled gasp escaped her throat when she discovered how very wrong she was. Severus Snape stood only a few feet away from her, his face twisted in what only could be described as his signature scowl. The world turned on its axis and for a moment she thought she would faint.

"Didn't your parents ever teach you it is impolite to stare, Miss Granger?" the man snarled.

She stumbled back, not understanding what she was seeing before her eyes. Snape was dead, had been dead for multiple hours. The truth had come out about his loyalties and past, and Harry had was spreading the word to ensure his legacy last she saw him. Knowing that, it was impossible for the man to be standing before her like he was now.

"Have you lost your ability to speak? What little credit I gave your mediocre intelligence is dwindling," Snape continued to berate her.

"You're dead," Hermione blurted out.

"Very astute of you. If you are done stating the obvious Miss Granger, perhaps you could show enough alertness so that I may finally answer, the no doubt, endless list of questions you must have," Snape rolled his eyes at her.

Hermione had the sense to shut her gaping mouth and blush. The shame that usually came with the Professor's glare quickly returned to her. Despite her shock and confusion, she nodded with her mouth firmly shut.

"Much better. Now, you were correct in your, obvious, statement that I am dead, Miss Granger. However it is with my _deepest_ regrets that I inform you that I am not the only one," Snape said, in the same voice she had often heard him spout off potion instructions from memory.

She stared at him in confusion, not truly understanding what he meant. Cocking her head to the side, she watched him grow more frustrated by her lack of response.

"I'm sorry, sir, I'm not understanding your meaning," Hermione confessed.

Snape let out a growl, taking a large stride towards her. Hermione felt smaller under the looming figure of her former Professor and resisted the urge to recoil from his angry frame.

"You are dead, Mis Granger. You did not survive the accident. An unstable wall, collapsed on you and multiple others as you attempted to fix this corridor. It crushed you," Snape spat at her.

Her, now theoretical, heart stopped. The memory of her own scream as the wall fell coming back to her. The sniffling of Molly Weasley played in her head. No one had been ignoring her pleas for help, they had not seen or heard them at all. She truly was dead.

"But-but the ghosts. They can-why can't-" Hermione stumbled over her words.

"As you attempt to form a coherent sentence Miss Granger, I will tell you what little assumptions I have made of our situation. We are not like the ghosts you are used to roaming Hogwarts. We can not be seen or heard by any of the living or those ghosts that you are so used to. The reasoning behind this has yet to make itself known," Snape took a step back from her.

Hermione felt nothing. She knew herself and her body. Her eyes should have been prickling her eyes, her breath should have been ragged, and pain should have clutched at her chest. Yet, she felt nothing. Her body had no reaction to the obvious grief and feelings of distraught that were closing in on her. Is this what death felt like? Like nothing?

"Is there anyone else?" Hermione managed to ask.

"No. You are the first and only spirit that I have encountered since my death that has been able to hear and see me," Snape answered, matter a factly.

Hermione moved to lean against the remaining parts of the corridor walls and gasped. The top half of her body went through, and she found herself looking into an abandoned Charms classroom upside down. A, surprisingly sturdy hand pulled her back through the wall and back to the corridor that she had been in…and died in. Snape was giving her a writhing look, as he quickly released her hand.

"You must think actively Miss Granger, or you will find yourself unable to come in contact with any material. Be aware of the wall that you will be leaning against," Snape told her.

Hermione nodded, taking in his words. As abstract as his explanation may have been, she found herself understanding it as she usually did in class. Ensuring that she focused on the wall, she slowly leaned against it. To her pleasure this time she managed to not fall through.

"Perhaps you will take to death quite nicely, after all, Miss Granger," Snape looked down his long nose at her.

 **Day 9**

"Watching your own funeral is very macabre wouldn't you say, Miss Granger?" Snape stepped up behind her.

In the short time, the two had spent in their own personal afterlife, Hermione had grown used to his surprise entrances. Her eyes did not leave the gathering on the Hogwarts lawn below the third story window. Some part of her grimaced at the idea of being buried at Hogwarts instead of a proper cemetery, yet she also felt proud. From the conversations she had overheard, both her and Snape's bodies would be buried in the same area as Dumbledore. An honor apparently reserved to those that were considered servers of Hogwarts.

"It is just idle curiosity Professor," Hermione answered after a moment.

She could not make out the faces of the huddled figures below. Her focused gaze could barely make out the, significantly smaller, ginger crowd that was the Weasley family. Despite the distance though she knew exactly who stood closest to her lowering coffin. The duo of unruly black hair and blazing ginger stood apart from the rest of the people that had come to her funeral. Their heads were down, she suspected starring at her body being lowered to the ground.

She felt her hypothetical heartbreak once again. How badly she wanted to cry, how badly she wanted to jump out the castle window and run to them. The pain that she knew was there but couldn't feel at their separation from each other was hard enough, she could only imagine the weight that was crushing them.

"Since walking into this school, I have not been away from them for longer than a few weeks," Hermione thought out loud, not directly speaking to the only person that could hear her.

"Unfortunately you will have to prepare yourself for a longer separation from Misters Potter and Weasley," Snape's voice was not soft but was spoken in something other than snarl he usually spoke to her in.

Hermione spared him a glance over her shoulder, seeing him scowl at her. Turning back to her funeral, she saw groups of people begin to walk away. Her coffin had finally reached it's final resting place and with it went the little pathetic hope she had held onto. There would be no seeing Ron or Harry again, nor Ginny and Luna. For Merlin knew how long she would be stuck in the damn castle she had once considered a home with her forever scowling former Professor.

How funny death was.

 **Day 39**

Hermione watched Dean Thomas and Seamus Finnigan attempt to clean up the destroyed library. Multiple pairs of volunteers had been stomping into the once grand room to do their share in the restoration plans going on for the past two weeks. Growing bored of watching Snape attempt to murder the unfortunate volunteers dealt the job of cleaning out his former house with the strength of his glare alone, she often found herself wandering into the library. In life, it had been a sanctuary for her, and she hoped that once it was fully restored it would be again.

"Merlin, what is this?" Seamus held up a clump of what must have been book pages but now resembled a burnt glob.

Dean looked over at his friend and shrugged.

"Who knows what's in this place," he commented.

Hermione bit down on the inside of her cheek, forcing herself to not comment on their attitude towards her precious library. Snape was constantly having to remind her that despite her love of _speaking incessantly,_ no one could hear her now. So even if she did speak up in protest toward Dean and Seamus, it would be a waste of breath. Well, theoretical breath. She suddenly understood why the former Professor was constantly glaring at those that displeased him. It wasn't like there was anything else to do.

"Shame that Hermione isn't here. She would have loved doing this. Lass never left this place…" Seamus trailed off, as if he were going to say more but realized what he was saying.

Hermione sat up straighter on the tumbled over bookshelf she was balancing herself on. It was the first time she had heard her name mentioned since her funeral. Seamus was the last person she had suspected to bring her up, though.

Dean stood up, leaving the piles of mess where they were. Hermione watched him turn towards Seamus with a pained expression on his face. Seamus himself she noticed, was looking at a mostly intact book on the ground with distant eyes. Hermione put a hand to her mouth, even though she knew they wouldn't be able to hear the distraught sound she made.

They were mourning her.

"It's a right shame," Seamus repeated himself, voice cracking.

She wanted to cry. She wanted to have tears fall down her cheeks, anything to release the sorrow that was building in her. For years she thought she had fallen into the background when it came to her Gryffindor classmates. Lost behind the fame of Harry and likability of Ron. Yet here she was witnessing two of her former house members mourn her loss.

"Have you talked to them?" Dean asked, breaking the silence that was beginning to listen.

This time Hermione really did gasp, there was no questioning who 'them' was. Harry and Ron. She was finally going to hear about Harry and Ron.

"No, but I talked to Ginny the other day. They haven't left the house since. Barely eat. It's been…rough on them," Seamus answered.

Hermione let out an unheard scream when she felt herself fall through the bookshelf, finding herself sticking out of it at odd angles. The two boys shared sympathetic looks before returning to their previous work, not knowing that the very girl they had mourned was only a few feet away from them. She struggled to get out of the bookshelf, grateful that Snape wasn't here to scowl at her and make snide comments about her failure.

Once out, she left the library. Now knowing that she didn't want to hear about her two best friends or their depression at her loss. Being stuck in the bloody afterlife was bad enough without knowing the pain she was causing by being there.

 **Day 71**

Hermione and Snape glared at each other from across the room.

McGonagall stood, unknowingly, between them. The newly appointed Headmistress was slumped over financial accounts for the upcoming school year. The quill the woman had been tapping against her desk suddenly snapped in half, and she let out a frustrated sigh.

Hermione groaned, burying her face in her hands. Looking back up, she noticed Snape smirking at her. She swore she could feel the glee coming off him in waves.

"I do believe, Miss Granger, that I correctly bet that she would break another quill in the next half hour," he told her.

Hermione scowled back at him, knowing what was going to happen next.

"You're a right bastard," Hermione muttered, looking away from him.

"50 points, Miss Granger for your disrespecting of a professor," Snape snapped at her, she suspected out of instinct.

She was about to open her mouth and tell him where could shove the reward he wanted from her when a sound startled her. The tinkling of crystals echoed in the tense silence that was the Headmistress's office. All three heads turned, startled, to the copy of the house hourglasses that showed the points currently held by each house. Since Hogwarts wasn't in session yet, it had stood frozen at the count that had been there since Hermione's sixth year. Until now.

Hermione watched open mouthed as the crystals in the Gryffindor hourglass dwindled, Snape's fifty points taken away. She turned her head towards the man, noting that he was looking back at her with an equally aghast expression. This was an odd development.

"Bloody thing must be broken," McGonagall mumbled, turning back to the papers on her desk.

Hermione heard Snape snort impolitely at the sound of the stern Headmistress cursing. Mind still on the house hourglasses, Hermione attempted to lose herself in thought. Her expression must have shown as much because Snape crossed the room in two strides.

"Not so fast, Miss Granger, I am awaiting my prize," Snape all but gloated.

Hermione rolled her eyes petulantly at him but knew he would not let the topic go until she had paid up.

She mumbled the promised phrase under her breath, jumbling all the words together.

"What was that Miss Granger, I know you can speak better than that," Snape goaded.

"Hogwarts a History is rubbish," Hermione spoke up louder.

Snape smirked at her once again before making his leave of the office.

The right bastard.

She stayed behind to watch the Headmistress as she worked. Hermione was not used to seeing the stress and pain that went behind the closed door of her Professor's office doors. She walked over to stand behind the woman, wanting to off comfort that the woman would never be able to feel. Hermione reached out and placed her hand on the woman's shoulder. Even though her hand didn't go through the woman, she knew there was no way she could feel it. McGonagall sighed again, slumping even more over the desk. Hermione sighed as well. She gave the woman one last glance before allowing herself to fall through the floor.

 **Day 127**

"Miss Granger if you don't stop that incessant tapping-" Snape had begun.

"What? You'll what? Give me detention?" Hermione shouted back at him.

The two had been sitting in the Ravenclaw common room, the only one they could agree to sit in. Hermione had been hearing about the student's incoming return of the students within the next few weeks. Multiple of her former classmates would be returning, but one thing had been made clear to her. Harry and Ron would not be returning with them. Word was the two had accepted the Minister's opportunity to jump right in Auror training without completing their education. That meant she would never see them again, they would never walk these corridors again while she was stuck to remain here forever.

She hated being dead.

"Have respect for your elders, Miss Granger," Snape spat back, standing up from the chair he had been sitting in.

"You are no longer my elder, Severus, we are both stuck in this bloody place. You and I are equal now," Hermione laughed a hollow laugh. It could have been described as a dead laugh. A dead laugh from a dead girl.

"I am your Professor, Miss Granger!" Snape snapped.

"I am no longer your student, and you are no longer my professor you bastard. Don't you understand that? We are no longer what we used to be. We are dead! Our lives ended, we didn't survive, we are nothing!" Hermione heard her voice crack on the last word.

She wanted to collapse in on herself and cry, but she wasn't even allowed that. What had she done to deserve this fate? Her mother had told her that those that do good in life went on to a better afterlife. What kind of life had she truly lived to earn this hell of eternity? With a man that hated her.

"Miss Granger-Hermione, if you expect me to take you into my arms and offer you comfort you will be severely disappointed," Snape drawled.

"I am dead Severus, not delusional," was her hollow reply.

It was true. She had no wish for her former Professor to comfort her. Death may have forced them into the closest thing to a friendship they could manage, but it had not changed them. She would forever be his know-it-all student, and he would always be her hooked-nose Professor.

"Have you questioned why we are the only two like this, Professor," she forced herself to use his more proper title again.

The older man's stern facade crumbled slightly at the question and for the first time his eyes did not glare at her in hatred but softened to something close to understanding.

"I have. I was not a good man in life, Hermione," Snape began.

"But you protected Harry! You were one of the greatest heroes of the war," Hermione sputtered.

Snape sighed, sitting back down in the plush armchair. He looked up at her with a singular raised brow. The motion nearly made her flinch. Once upon a time that raised brow would have told her she had been caught trying to help Neville with his potion. A symbol of authority from Professor to a student. While they were forever frozen in that state, the motion now spoke volumes of their change in relationship.

"A war hero I may be by your and Potter's pathetic standards, but I was not a good man. I took pleasure in torturing Potter as I protected him from deadly harm. I took pleasure in torturing the lot of you," Snape sneered.

Hermione frowned but didn't interrupt.

"Potter goes around to those bloody papers securing my legacy as the bravest man he ever knew. I can assure I am no Gryffindor in disguise as your friend likes to tote. I was a coward. I joined the Death Eaters as a boy not because I was forced but because I was hungry for power. I saw the way James Potter would walk down these halls, looked at with respect with the girl that I loved on his arm. I wanted that power and respect, even if I had to get it through torture and fear," Snape scoffed.

Hermione walked over to him, sitting on the floor to look up at him. A ghostly haunted storytime.

"But you changed sides, Professor," Hermione whispered.

The man looked down at her. Pity in his gaze.

"I did. Only because that manipulative old fool said he would keep the woman I loved safe. I didn't care about her supposed love or her newborn son. I only cared for her. I have seen you jump into a lower year fight to defend the very first-years that spoke ill of your Mister Potter. I wouldn't even beg for the safety of my love's son. I was selfish then and I was selfish throughout the years. I protected Mister Potter, but I also punished him myself. For no other reason than because he was a constant reminder that I did not get what I wanted. He was proof that Lily had not chosen me, and he was the reason that she was not alive," Snape growled.

"Tell me is that the good kind of man? The kind that didn't care for a newborn's life, the kind that punished your precious Potter for something out of his control, who scared that dimwit Longbottom into a quivering state every class, is that the kind of man who is able to ascend to whatever afterlife Lily and the rest of the true war heroes go?" Snape asked her.

"I shagged Harry," Hermione blurted.

Snape blanched and gripped the arms to the chair.

"I shagged Harry because Ron had abandoned us in a tent in the middle of nowhere, and I knew that it would hurt him. I would check out all copies of the book needed for an assignment, just because it gave me self-righteous pride to see the procrastinating students worry themselves into a frenzy. I once shot a tripping hex at Lucius Malfoy when I say him walking in the Alley," Hermione confessed.

She ran through all those sins with her head down, only looking up whens she heard a rumbling chuckle. Shocked, she stared at the notorious former Head of Slytherin as deep chuckles escaped him. He looked stuck between disgust at his own outburst and mirth.

"I'm glad you find my wrongdoings so amusing, Severus," Hermione sniffed, sticking her nose into the air.

"Tell me, Hermione, are those your only wrongdoings?" Snape managed to compose himself enough to ask.

"No. I think I actually am quite attracted to evil, sir. From my early years in Hogwarts to just the last few, I may have developed crushes on some of the more…questionable men in my life," Hermione said for the first time aloud. She had never admitted to anyone but Luna (the least likely person to judge her) about these infatuations she had had.

"Pray tell, who exactly were these questionable men?" Snape asked, leaning forward.

"Most memorably, I did develop a crush on two of the most hated Professors-no not Umbridge you dirty man-both Lockheart and you. No offense to you Severus, but you were hated by most of the students. I also had a rather long-term infatuation with Draco Malfoy, after he insulted me at the Quidditch World Cup no less," Hermione snorted.

"And why exactly did you have these school girl crushes on such unsavory men?" Snape smirked at her.

"I've given it a lot of thought since we've been stuck like this. I think it had to do with power and respect. Lockheart had so much acclaim if he noticed me out of all the girl's in class, that would have given me some power over the rest of my simpering housemates. Both you and Malfoy are respected in the larger part of wizarding society. Imagine if Malfoy had taken a liking to me. A muggleborn with the heir to one of the most powerful families in wizarding Britain. May I confess something, Severus?" Hermione said, breaking from her trance-like state of thought.

"You already have me gabbing like Lavender Brown, girl, I doubt another confession will make any difference," Severus raised a brow.

"The locket-the Horcrux - it may have made Ron leave, but he only had to wear it for so long because of what it would do to me. I wouldn't lash out like him or Harry, I would do something much worse. I would sit and for those hours I had it, plot. I am not stupid, Severus, I know that it's not bragging when I say I could have taken Harry and Ron. I know what I am capable of. I would imagine leading, ruling, controlling, showing this prejudice society exactly what some muggle born witch could do," Hermione nearly whispered.

"Does that make me a bad person, Severus?" she asked, looking up at him.

"You are not evil. If there's something that Albus Dumbledore taught me it is that there even the best and pure-hearted of people have dark leanings and aspirations at any time of their life," Severus answered.

"In that case, Severus, then you are also not a bad person. Whatever this state is, it is not punishment for the lives that we lived. I suggest we try to figure out what exactly it's purpose is then," Hermione said, standing up.

 **Day 190**

"Your attempts to sit down while stressed while amusing are pathetic, Hermione," Snape sneered.

Hermione scowled at him from her spot half into a chair and half through the floor. She stuck a hand out of the chair cushion and waited. Snape raised a brow at her but sighed none the less. His robes somehow still billowing behind him, he stomped over to her and pulled her out of her pathetic state.

"How much longer until the students return home?" Hermione sneered at the loud bunches of teenagers around the library. She was missing the sound of silence despite hating it in the months earlier. There was something to be appreciated about having an entire castle to yourself, well mostly.

"Ten points from Hufflepuff," Snape smirked at one set of, particularly loud students.

"You're deplorable," Hermione stated, but couldn't help but smirk too.

Snape released her hand with a scowl.

"In that case, perhaps next time I will leave you stuck like that for hours. I think you remember how unfortunate that situation can be," Snape told her.

Hermione blanched. This wasn't the first time the noise of the returned students had broken her concentration. She was finding it harder and harder to manage anything lately. Infamously, Severus stumbled across her asleep in both the corridor and Charms classroom after not being able to free herself for most of the day.

"How do you manage it? They are everywhere, they know every room, every alcove. It's no wonder you tortured the lot of us," Hermione hissed.

"I have had years of experience with sniveling students. Worse yet, I have experienced the torture that can only be known as having you and your two dimwit friends as students," Snape replied.

Hermione scoffed, turning away from the busy library. No students of the current year had managed to get into as much trouble as she, Harry, and Ron had, yet. The year had been quiet in adventure and turmoil. She should have been glad to see the students so full of energy when their first week here and been full of solemn silence. It wasn't until word had gotten to George Weasley of the student's depression that excitement began again. The now sole owner of the joke shop sent all the student a free sampling package. That led to mayhem within the corridors.

Severus and she had spent that weekend caught between amusement and fear for their already ended lives. McGonagall eventually wrangled the students down, but the change had been made. The students went from grieving shells to the closest they would ever get to their old selves.

The corridor was full of students and despite not having to, Hermione tried her best to move out of their way. While Severus had no problem walking right through a student and scaring the poor child have to death with the sudden chill that accompanied that, she felt it unnerving to walk through someone else's body. Especially when they were students that she had known in her previous life.

"Bloody hell! That was cold. Where the merlin did that chill come from! We are in the corridor!" She heard Seamus Finnigan curse behind her. She held back a smile. Severus would always find a way to torture his former pupils.

 **Day 200**

"Who are you stalking this time?" Snape drawled.

Hermione shushed him, watery eyes glued to the scene in front of her.

Neville Longbottom sat on the bench in front of the plaque that had been put up in her honor. It stood just outside the library, telling every passing student of the war hero that had once made the place her sanctuary. There was a similar one for Snape outside the Potions classroom.

She felt Severus step closer and held her breath. The sniffles coming from Neville would surely make the older man snort. The sound that was causing her heart to break, would only bring him amusement.

"Don't tell me the boy is crying for you, after all, this time," Snape commented with a scoff.

Hermione sighed. She truly didn't know who Neville was crying for, but it broke her heart just the same. The great war hero that he was, the sweet boy that he had always been, deserved better than sniffles in the late hours of the night.

"Leave him alone, Severus," Hermione snarled.

The former Professor raised a singular brow at her, no doubt surprised her outburst.

"Neville?" the sweet sound of Luna Lovegood's voice echoed in the empty hall.

Hermione watched as the blonde girl walked up from the darkness to sit beside Neville on the bench.

"They're making a portrait of her, and they won't bloody come, Luna," Neville moaned.

Hermione felt Severus stiffen just when she did.

"What do you mean?" Luna asked, tilting her head in confusion.

"McGonagall called me to her office today. Reckon she'll call you and Ginny in tomorrow. They're going to have some big ceremony to put Hermione and Snape's portraits. She tried to get Harry and Ron to come speak about her, but they declined. They won't even come to the bloody ceremony. She wants me and probably the two of you too to speak about her instead. Her best friends and they won't even do this," Neville explained.

Hermione gasped. Her heart falling into the pit of her stomach.

Luna sat in silence, waiting for Neville to continue.

"They didn't do anything without each other. They were always there for each other. She was with them all the time, and it's like they don't even bloody care for her," Neville sniffled again.

Hermione felt someone tug on her arm. She turned around to see Severus staring at her in awe. She attempted to turn back to the scene in front of her. To hear more about how the people most important to her had forgotten her enough to not even take the time to speak at a ceremony in her honor. Severus kept a grip on her arm, staring down at her with wide eyes. She watched in sullen anger, as he reached forward with one hand. She felt herself stiffen, as his hand went to her cheek. She felt him caress the skin with such delicate softness, swiping against the apple of her cheek.

"Imagine how she must feel, seeing all this. Seeing how much they apparently cared about her. And who's there to comfort her to tell her to forget the lot of them?" Neville's rant continued in the distance.

Hermione's eyes widened as Severus held up the thumb that he had brushed against her cheek. It gleamed with the moisture of a fresh tear. A sob escaped her lips. Crying. She was crying.

Severus looked down at her with a conflicted expression before sneering. She gasped sobbed again when she felt him tug her forward, into his own stiff chest, as he hugged her.

"You know Neville, I think she will be doing just fine," Luna's knowing voice rattled Hermione's senses.

Breaking away from the stiff hug, the pair of ghosts looked back at the living pair. Luna Lovegood's blue eyes were looking right at them, a serene knowing smile on her lips.

 **Day 207**

"If you are so determined to see this ceremony in our honor, you will have to stop your avoidance of Miss Lovegood," Severus told her.

Hermione watched from the window as groups of people made their way into the castle, all for the ceremony for their portraits reveal and official placing. She had spent the last week holed up in the Slytherin Common Room, much to Severus' pleasure, in avoidance of Luna and her new apparent ability to see them.

"You don't find that strange and worrying at all? That Luna can see us! That I can suddenly cry. Something is happening, Severus," Hermione sighed.

"We have researched all the material that is available to us, and there seems to be no explanation on our situation. I am not one to dwell on the things that we cannot change," Severus replied.

Hermione scowled at him but stayed silent. They had spent weeks digging through the library for any explanation of what exactly was happening to them and if it was permanent. Nothing had come up that fit their exact situation. They had given up on their research, but things were different now. Someone could see them.

"And why this sudden fear of Miss Lovegood. Why aren't you in Ravenclaw tower now, talking to your old friend?" Severus drawled.

Hermione scowled again. No matter how valid the question was, she would never tell him the truth. That she had come to accept her fate, that she had grown used to her life of being unnoticed by everyone. She had been growing to accept and even enjoy an eternity of being a ghost and arguing with the older man. Now, something was changing. If she talked to Luna, who knows what else would happen.

"We should be going or we will miss our own ceremony," Hermione changed the subject. Giving him a pointed look, she walked out of the room through one of the many walls. She had had a terrible experience earlier when she had attempted to go through the ceiling of the dungeon only to find herself at the bottom of the lake. Now, she stuck through going through just the walls when in the dungeon area.

She knew that Severus would follow eventually so didn't check behind her until she heard a muffled groan. Hermione turned back to see Severus stuck in the wall. A majority of his body was on the side of the hall while there were still some of his legs on the side of the common room.

Looking at the older man who had mastered their ability the day he arrived, Hermione felt the beginning of fear creep up her spine. Something was happening. She just didn't know what.

Author's Note:

I have the second chapter scheduled to be uploaded on Sunday, but I love this story so much I might just end up uploading it earlier because I'm so excited to share it with all of you.

Be sure to favorite, review, and all that other fun stuff.

What do you think is going on with Snape and Hermione?


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